We hope you have a relaxing holiday week and enjoy a break from the routine.The News this week is brief and forward-looking. We congratulate The Rail Park for their NEA grant which allows them to move forward with envisioning 'The Cut.' We are also excited with the news that The West Collection is starting up tours of its collection on the campus of SEI in Oaks, PA. The West Collection is a unique corporate art collection devoted to adventurous art that's installed right in the working spaces at the financial services company. The art includes a goodly number of Philadelphia artists. And the story of the collection and its "Hot Hall," for pieces rejected by employees for one reason or another, is a good one. If you haven't been, you should go check it out. Ryan says you can bike there! There are trails!
Happy Fourth, Everybody!
NEWS
Invasive Species Installation Piece of Projected Image of the Cut
Rail Park gets NEA grant for The Cut
At the end of 2023, The Rail Park submitted our SEPTA RFI for “The Cut” and testified in City Council in support of blight remediation and acquisition of the Viaduct– two HUGE strides forward towards our shared Three Mile Vision. To support this momentum, we are thrilled to announce we have been awarded a grant from the @neaarts that will help us continue this momentum through a community-engaged design.
At the end of 2023, the Rail Park submitted its SEPTA RFI for The Cut and testified in City Council in support of blight remediation and acquisition of the Viaduct. In support of a shared Three Mile Vision, the Rail Park is thrilled to have been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that will keep this momentum through a community-engagement design process.
Details of the grant from the NEA website:
Purpose: To support a community-engaged design process leading to further development of Philadelphia’s Rail Park. Additional Project Description: A consultant will be selected through a request for proposals process to lead a wide variety of community engagement activities, including surveys, social media outreach, interviews, tours of the undeveloped space, and participatory convenings. Particular engagement will take place with the socio-economically and racially diverse residents who live in the communities surrounding the park. The design process will focus on an area known as “The Cut,” an open-air section of land adjacent to Philadelphia’s Spring Garden neighborhood. Intended Beneficiaries: The project will benefit Philadelphia visitors and residents, particularly those who live near the Rail Park. Intended Outcome: Communities are strengthened through system-wide initiatives integrated with the arts.
Read Ryan’s piece about “The Cut,” which he wrote after experiencing an augmented reality project that envisioned the space for the future.
Artblog Art Safari to West Collection, Spring, 2016.
West Collection tours plus the Hot Hall story
HOT HALL STORY
SEI founder Al West and his daughter Paige started the West Family Art Collection (West Collection) in 1996 to bring challenging and surprising contemporary art to SEI’s new campus in Oaks, PA. SEI is a financial services company with over 4,000 employees spread across 10 buildings in about 900,000 square feet of open collaborative space. Paige West, as curator, is passionate about using contemporary art to stimulate employees to think outside of their comfort zone. The artwork in the workplace has showcased SEI as a company that challenges norms and expectations.
In 1997, the Hot Hall was established as a place for artwork that some SEI employees deemed “too controversial” for their workspace. Paige West didn’t believe in censoring. Instead, she carved out a middle ground, relocating pieces in question to this “safe space” where employees and visitors could view the compelling artwork and leave comments creating a dialogue about the art.
Hot Hall successfully accomplished that goal and generated more interest in the artwork and artists. This exhibit revisits some of the most notable pieces that have been “Hot Halled” over the last 27 years.
Alex Da Corte, 2008. “Accessory,” acrylic fingernails, polish, pins, earrings, seed beads, sequins, Swarovski crystals, glitter. 62x20x20″. West Collection. Photo by Roberta Fallon
“When we started this, lots of employees weren’t too happy with it (the art program in general). It wasn’t art they had chosen and there were no outlets for them to voice their opinion about it, but it was going to be hung in areas where they work and sit all day. They started physically voicing their opinions by removing some pieces from the walls…. so we created this space called “Hot Hall.” It’s an area of SEI that many employees have to visit during the day— the mail room is there, the gym is down there, but it’s not a client facing area. We took the works that had been removed from the walls to that point to get it started. We explained to the company that there would be an area where you could use a computer to leave anonymous comments about the art at the company. We also let them know that if there was art in their area that they didn’t like, they could send us an e-mail telling us where they were and what team they were on, and if two or three people had a problem with the work, it would be removed to the Hot Hall.”
-Paige West
TOUR THE WEST COLLECTION
Tours of the West Collection at SEI are available on Wednesdays at 10:30am and 1pm. SEI’s newest building, Valley View, has new installations by artists Keith Garcia, Lucas Reiner, Jessica Rohrer, Anton Volke, Pontus Wilfors and Dina Wind.
Tours are must be scheduled in advance by emailing: tours@westcollection.org
